Fear itself

4

After taking care of a few minor housekeeping details (yes, the patio door of 1211 Baja Way had been unlocked; no, Pender hadn’t broken in; yes, Pender had had reason to believe Mr. Carpenter might have been in immediate physical danger; no, Miss Bell hadn’t intentionally misled the mailman into thinking she was a federal agent-that sort of thing), Pender and Dorie drove back to Carmel.

He didn’t offer any details as to what had been in the bathroom; she didn’t ask. But that wasn’t the real elephant-that-nobody’s-talking-about in the car on the drive down; the real elephant for Dorie was that this was going to be their last night together-Pender had booked an eight o’clock flight out of San Francisco tomorrow morning.

So it took her completely by surprise when he asked her, hypothetically speaking of course, how long it would take her to pack.

“For what?” she asked suspiciously.

“Hypothetically? Call it a little vacation.”

“How long?”

“I dunno, a week or two-that’d be up to you.”

“Leaving when?”

“Tomorrow-with me; I got us two tickets.” Then, before she could mount a protest: “Look, scout, the hardest part is the anticipation, right? By not telling you, I’ve already pared that down to the bare minimum. We pick up a pizza on the way home, you pack, ask Mrs. Whatsername next door, Mrs. Tibsen, to keep an eye on the place. Four-thirty in the morning, bing, we’re on the road, and this time tomorrow we’re sitting on my back porch eating crab cakes and watching the sun go down over the canal. And your aviophobia’s a thing of the past, like your prosophono-your proposono-whatever the hell you-”

“Okay.”

“-call it. What?”

“I said okay. I’ll do it. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s my girl,” said Pender. “Heart of a lion, guts of a burglar, cornflower blue eyes to die for, and a rack that won’t quit.”

“Pender.”

“What?”

“Shut the hell up before I change my mind.”